Garudapurana 1.235

The glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa—[chapter] 235.
Sūta said: I will tell the knowledge of Brahman, which is the established conclusion of the Vedānta and Sāṅkhya, / contemplating: "I am Brahman, the supreme light, Viṣṇu."

The one light abides in three ways: in the sun, in the space of the heart, and in fire. / Just as the ghee residing in milk does not produce strength for cows,

but when extracted, prepared by processing, and given to them, gives great strength, / so Viṣṇu, residing in the body, does not effect the welfare of men

without worship, [though] the god, the Supreme Lord, is omnipresent. / But the knowledge of action is taught for those minds wishing to ascend;

for those who have ascended the tree of yoga, knowledge and renunciation are considered supreme. / [When] one desires to perceive sound and other [objects], passion and hatred arise;

greed, delusion, and anger—associated with these, a person commits sin. / The hands, the genitals, the stomach, and fourth, speech: this group of four—

he whose [group of four] is well restrained is called a wise brāhmaṇa by the wise. / He does not take another's property, and likewise does not commit violence;

and he who does not delight in playing with dice, his hands are well restrained. / He who is intent on avoiding another's wife, his genitals are well restrained;

he who eats this without greed, his belly is restrained; / because he speaks what is true, beneficial, and measured, his speech is restrained.

For him who has restrained these, what need is there of austerity and sacrifices? / The unification which belongs always to intellect, mind, and the senses,

whether with seed or without seed, is declared to be meditation. / He who fixes the intellect, situated between the eyebrows, on the sense objects,

when the senses have ceased, and the mind indeed is unstable,

that individual soul sees dreams, both external and internal. / In the waking state, the individual soul [perceives thus]—so say the wise.

Abiding in the heart, deluded by darkness, it does not even remember / when, whence, or where it is; this is called deep sleep.

For the waking one who has no drowsiness, delusion, or confusion, / [and though objects] arise, the self-controlled one does not perceive the sense objects of sound and the rest;

having withdrawn the senses from the sense objects, and likewise the mind; / and the ego by the intellect, and indeed the intellect by nature;

and having restrained nature too through the power of consciousness, abiding in isolation, / he sees the Self in the Self, illuminating the Self by the Self,

consisting of consciousness, immortal, pure, inactive, pervasive, auspicious. / Established in the fourth state, he is [liberated], no doubt.

Sound and the rest are the five qualities, and sattva and the rest are the three qualities; / they are indeed the eight petals of the lotus of the city of eight.

The state of equilibrium produced by the qualities is nature, the pericarp there; / residing in the pericarp is the luminous god, the embodied one, consisting indeed of consciousness.

When the individual soul goes, having abandoned the city of eight / and nature composed of the qualities, then it attains liberation; there is no doubt.

Breath control, recitation, sensory withdrawal, and then concentration,
meditation, and absorption: these six accomplish yoga.

Destruction of sin, pleasure of the deities, and restraint of the senses:
accompanied by recitation and meditation, it is 'with seed'; contrary to that, it is 'seedless.'

Thirty-six mātrās is the best; twenty-four mātrās
is middling, and twelve mātrās [is least]. One should constantly recite the syllable Oṃ.

When the expressive praṇava is known, the expressed Brahman is pleased.
One should recite the six-syllabled [mantra] 'oṃ namo viṣṇave' and the twelve-syllabled Gāyatrī.

The turning outward of all the senses toward their sense objects—
the withdrawal of the mind from that is proclaimed as pratyāhāra.

Withdrawing the senses from the sense objects, well disposed,
he immediately remains established in pratyāhāras along with the intellect.

The measure of time that is made by twelve breath controls—
he who holds the mind on Brahman for that long a period of time,
for him twelve concentrations are declared by Brahmā to be meditation;
restrained and disciplined, he is content: that is called samādhi.

Whose mind does not wander while intensely meditating,

having reached the designated time—as long as [it lasts], that is considered dhāraṇā.
He whose mind is attached to the object of meditation sees only that object of meditation;

he knows no other object: this is proclaimed as dhyāna.
Contemplating the object of meditation, the mind attains unswerving stillness in the object of meditation.

That which is proclaimed as supreme dhyāna by sages who contemplate meditation:
the meditator, having become one with it, sees only the object of meditation everywhere,

free from duality—that is called samādhi.
The mind is devoid of conceptual construction; he should not think of sense objects.

When one's [mind] is merged in Brahman, then one is said to be established in samādhi.
For the yogin who meditates on the Supreme Self situated within the self,

the mind becomes identified with that: he is praised as established in samādhi.
[Lack of] stability of the mind, delusion, dejection, and negligence:

these are stated to be the faults of yogins, producing obstacles to yoga.
For the sake of steadying the mind, one should contemplate the entire gross form.

That practice, having become motionless, situated in the subtle, will attain stability.
Nothing whatsoever exists in the world without the Supreme Self.

Knowing that He alone has all forms, one is liberated.
One should meditate on the syllable Oṃ, the supreme Brahman, the all-pervading Lord residing in a lotus.

Free from field and field-knower, endowed with three mātrās, one should recite it.
One should first contemplate the Pradhāna in the heart, and above it,

tamas, rajas, and sattva, the triple circle in succession,
black, red, and white; within that, the Puruṣa termed the individual soul;

above it, an eight-petaled lotus representing virtue and sovereignty;
knowledge is the pericarp there, and discriminative knowledge is regarded as the filaments;

dispassion is the stalk, its bulb is supreme Vaiṣṇava dharma.
Situated there on the pericarp, like the soul, is the motionless, all-pervading Lord.

One should meditate in the chest on the syllable Oṃ, united [with the Lord], the accomplisher of liberation.
If, meditating, one gives up the vital breaths, one goes to Brahman, to its own presence.

Having established Hari in the lotus of the body, the yogin who meditates is endowed with devotion.
Some, whose eyes are meditation, perceive the Self by the self;

others likewise through the intellect of Sāṅkhya; yet other yogins through yoga.
Knowledge that reveals Brahman cuts through the bondage of worldly existence.

Yoga of one-pointed mind therein grants liberation; of this there is no doubt.
He whose sensory organs are conquered and who is proud of his knowledge,

that yogin, abiding in the Supreme Self, is said to be liberated.
Rules of posture and place are not the accomplishers of yoga;

all extensive details are declared to produce delay.
Śiśupāla attained perfection through the weight of the practice of remembrance.

Performing the practice of yoga, they see the Self by the self.
Showing compassion toward all beings and aversion toward sense objects,

and keeping the genitals and stomach concealed, the yogin is liberated.
When a man no longer perceives sense objects through the senses,

merged in Brahman like a piece of wood, then the yogin becomes liberated.
Turning all castes, all splendors, and all sins to ashes

by the fire of meditation, the wise man attains the supreme goal.
Fire is indeed seen by churning; just so, Hari is truly seen by meditation.

When there is oneness of Brahman and the Self, that is the most supreme yoga.
Liberation does not occur through external forms, but through internal [practices] beginning with the restraints.

Through the knowledge of Sāṅkhya, through yoga, and through listening to the Vedānta,
that which is the direct perception of the Self—that is called liberation:
the nature of Self in the non-Self, the nature of Being in the non-being.

Thus in the glorious Garuḍa Mahāpurāṇa, in the first section called the Ācārakāṇḍa of the first part, the two hundred and thirty-fifth chapter, entitled 'Determination of the Nature of Knowledge of Brahman.'